


Righteous Indignation

by liketolaugh



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Autistic Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Connor Needs A Hug, Gen, Good Parent Hank Anderson, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Recovery, he gets one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-13 02:42:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21236819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liketolaugh/pseuds/liketolaugh
Summary: Eventually, Connor understands what Markus meant when he said Connor was as much a victim in this as any of them. Eventually, Connor learns to be angry.





	Righteous Indignation

**Author's Note:**

> I posted this a while back, on my tumblr; it was originally going to be part of a larger work, but I shuffled the host work around too much for it to still work, and it's good on its own too. So I'm posting it here.
> 
> Connor deserves to get better, that's all.

If it wasn’t for the steady _ping, ping, ping _of Connor’s coin bouncing between his hands, Hank might not have even noticed that he was up.

It was five in the morning – obscenely early for Hank, but sometimes you just woke up and couldn’t do a thing about it, and he’d stumbled out to the kitchen to grab a glass of water and try to get back to sleep when he heard the sound.

Hank squinted into the living room, wondering what the hell the kid was doing this time. And then he noticed the faint, uneven yellow flicker cast on the walls. Connor hadn’t even noticed him; that was worrying in and of itself.

Hank slowly set the glass down and came closer, watching Connor. Connor didn’t look up, but as Hank approached he started to make out his expression, brown eyes unfocused and fixed on the middle distance. His hands moved automatically, not missing a beat as he rolled the coin. His LED flickered wildly, betraying his apparent calm.

“Hey,” Hank said at last, gruff and uncomfortable, plopping himself down by Connor to frown at him. “What’re you doing up this time of night?”

He expected Connor to look at him and complain that he didn’t _need _sleep, and that nights were useful for finding new things to do; it had happened once or twice. He didn’t expect Connor to ignore him entirely, and he felt his foggy concern ramp up a little.

“Hey. Connor.” He leaned over, shaking Connor’s knee lightly. Connor started, almost dropping his coin before he caught it out of the air. “The hell is wrong with you?”

Connor blinked slowly, and then looked at him. His expression didn’t change.

His mouth opened, and then closed, and he dropped his gaze, clasping his hands together.

“You shouldn’t be up, Lieutenant,” he said quietly. “It’s early.”

_Yeah, it sure fucking is, ain’t it, _Hank thought irritably. “Too early to be thinking as hard as you were just now. What’s up, kid?”

Connor blinked at him again. Hank almost wanted to call his expression vacant.

“Can you scale it one to ten for me?” Hank prompted, falling back on systems that hadn’t failed yet. Mostly.

Connor brought his coin back out, rolling it slowly. His blank expression cracked, showing uncertainty. “I… don’t think I can.”

Great. So they were deep in the shit, then. Just what Hank wanted at five in the morning.

“Alright.” Hank stretched, grimacing slightly, and then crossed his arms and stared at Connor. “Spill. What’s on your mind?”

Connor hesitated for a painfully long moment, and maybe it was Hank’s imagination but he thought Connor’s breath was coming heavier than usual, each one deep and halting. When he spoke, it was loud enough that Hank jumped violently.

“They _made _me!”

Hank swore under his breath, but Connor was staring at him, eyes wide and brow creased, pinched in a look Hank didn’t recognize. “What are you on about?” he asked, head still foggy with sleep but starting to clear.

Connor looked angry, Hank realized. Which probably meant that he was bone-rattlingly _furious._

Connor’s fists clenched on his legs, his body taut with restrained energy. “They _forced _me to kill people,” he said, like he was revealing it for the first time, like he hadn’t ever realized it before. “I didn’t want to, they _made _me.”

Oh shit. Fuck, dammit.

Look, Hank and probably Markus had been trying to get Connor to accept this for a while, and technically it was good that it had apparently gotten through somehow. Hank had been kind of hoping the storm hit around Markus and not around him, though, because what did Hank know about any of this? Absolute jack shit.

“You’re right,” Hank said after a moment. “That’s, yeah, pretty much exactly what happened.”

It wasn’t the right thing to say. Possibly there _wasn’t _a right thing to say.

Connor shoved himself off the couch, the coin falling from his hand and rolling away, and paced, quick and restless, hands worrying at his sleeves and rubbing up and down his forearms distractedly. He was still rigid.

“It didn’t have to happen,” Connor said, rapid-fire and strained and not looking at Hank. “None of it did, none of it- _I didn’t have to be like this.” _He took a breath, quick and shallow. “It happened because- because someone who _wasn’t me _decided it should, and now _I _have to live with it. And, and…” His stutter was mechanical, like a skipping record, and he stopped by the wall, facing away from Hank. “It’s not-not-not _fair!”_

He sounded as overwhelmed as he did angry, his voice pitching strangely in unexpected places. He didn’t seem to notice. Empathy was a strangling weight on Hank’s chest, and he took a moment to breathe before he tried to respond.

Connor was wearing pajamas – soft dog pattern ones he’d picked out just a few weeks before.

“Nothing’s fair these days, Con,” he said at last, heavy and awkward. “I know, it sucks. But you can live with it – you’re strong, you-” Wait. “What do you mean, you didn’t have to be like this?”

“I didn’t have to be a _murderer!”_

Connor whirled around, his foot stomping hard enough to rattle the table and startle Sumo. His expression was crumpled; there were tears on his face, and Hank didn’t think he’d noticed that, either. His voice broke, which for Connor meant it screeched with feedback and dissolved into static for a long moment. Hank shut his mouth.

“I didn’t have to be an outsider to Jericho! I didn’t have to feel guilty for taking up space, or for being emotional, or-or not being emotional, or-or-or…” He choked up, shuddering, but his whole body was still rigid, and he didn’t come closer.

Hank went to him instead, pushing himself up and heading toward him, but Connor pulled back and he stopped. Hank huffed, struggling for words.

“Look,” he said at last. “I’m not gonna pretend I get it. I don’t. I don’t know what it’s like. It’s fucking awful that you have to live with someone else’s choices like they’re yours, twice as bad because it’s shit this heavy. You have every goddamn right to be mad, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

Connor stared at him. Some of the naked rage fell away from his expression.

“It was cruel,” Connor said at last. His voice shook subtly, raw with something other than anger.

“Understatement of the century,” Hank said evenly.

“I didn’t deserve it,” Connor said, the way he did when he felt he was testing his luck.

“Hell no,” Hank answered firmly. He felt exhausted. This kid was gonna be the death of him. “There’s nothing anyone could’ve done to deserve that, kid.”

Connor’s hands drifted to tug at his sleeves again, and his expression crumpled in a different way. His shoulders shook once, and he took a step forward, tentative.

Hank, recognizing the signs from an incident or two, grabbed his arm and tugged him on a few more steps, and the two of them almost fell onto the couch. A moment later, Connor started crying, helpless and open, and when Hank pulled him into a hug, he held on tight, like Hank was all that was holding him together.

Hank let out a long breath, and resigned himself to being here for a while, rubbing calming circles in Connor’s back ‘cause that was all he could think to do.

Eventually, after a long damn time, Connor’s gasps and shaking slowed to a stop. He wasn’t breathing hard, but he felt unnaturally warm under Hank’s hands. Outside, dawn was just starting to show. Connor made no move to pull away.

“I’m calling us both out of work today,” Hank said at last.

As expected, Connor made a muffled sound of protest, head tilting up to look at him. His face wasn’t wet; he’d run out of tears a while back. “But-”

“And when Jeffrey bitches at me,” Hank continued loudly, “I’m gonna tell him you’re recovering from realizing you’re the Winter Soldier: Android Edition, and he’ll have to give in. The Winter Soldier’s his favorite.”

Connor laughed, just a little, too quiet to hear but with a small, helpless, dazed look. “We should really-”

“I’ll invite Nines,” Hank bribed, raising an eyebrow. “You two can bicker about Marvel movies some more, and I’ll only complain a little.”

Connor’s expression softened visibly, and he slumped as he gave in. “Alright.” And then, “Thank you, Hank.”

Kid was going to be the _death _of him.


End file.
